


the light is no mystery

by LadyVictory



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending, F/F, Foursome - F/F/F/F, Multi, OT4
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-03-28
Updated: 2016-12-26
Packaged: 2018-05-29 18:23:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 18,433
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6387625
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyVictory/pseuds/LadyVictory
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A tale that picks up a year after the events of 3.06 (3.07 never happened).</p><p>Lexa and Clarke share a life but tap dance around admitting what it means. Octavia and Raven acknowledge what they are to each other, but Lincoln's ghost keeps them from taking the last step. The Skaikru girls deal with the emotional fallout of surviving the war with the City of Light. Lexa struggles with the fact that she did not die on the battlefield (winning was easy, ruling is harder), and what it means to have people in her life that she cares deeply about. All of them try and ignore what it means that they have all grown to depend on each other to cope with the world.</p><p>And then, there is A.L.I.E., looming dark and vengeful, slowly leaking back into reality and threatening to destroy the tentative peace that has been struck.</p><p>[Gonna be a long one.]</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue: Clarke

**Author's Note:**

  * For [dreamsheartstory](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dreamsheartstory/gifts).



> AN1: None of the original 100 delinquents, Skaikru, Grounders, or inhabitants of the City of Light belong to me.
> 
> AN2: To cheer up my Lyonkru. And because dreamsheartstory keeps bringing the ot4 goodness.
> 
> AN3: Completely unbeated/unedited. As in, I typed this and immediately posted it. I will probably go back as I post more and fiddle a bit, but I like to 'do it live' so...
> 
> AN4: I continue to be the WORST at summaries.

_We have not been given all the words necessary._

_We have no been given anything at all._

\-- The Dislocated Room, Richard Siken

 

**CLARKE**

 

_The pain wasn’t sharp as she had expected it to be, but hard and blunt. The arrow punched into her stomach like a fist, stealing her breath away._

_There was a part of Clarke’s mind that whispered exactly what had ruptured, what was torn and broken by the jagged metal of the arrowhead and wooden shaft, even as the rest of her screamed in agony._

_She could feel her life draining away, spilling down the front of her shirt. It was almost a relief, after all that had happened – after all she had lost and all the evil she had done. The Commander of Death would finally be able to rest..._

 

Clarke jerks awake silently, right hand automatically coming to rest on her stomach. Her palm is warm against the thick scar tissue just below her belly button, and she shivers.

 _“Klark?”_ Lexa’s voice is soft but not concerned, more of a reminder that Clarke is not alone, than anything else.

Swallowing hard, the blonde lets out a rush of air and slowly opens her eyes.

Blinking against the sunlight streaming through the open window, Clarke can’t help but smile at what she sees.

Lexa stands by the window, already dressed in what Raven would call her ‘business-casual Heda armor’ (the one without the shoulder guards or leather chest guard, but with the extra daggers), deftly affixing her red sash to her shoulder. She is beautiful, dappled in golden light, her green eyes regarding Clarke with a quiet tenderness most people would not believe the Commander capable of.

“Early day at the office?” Clarke asks, voice still scratchy from sleep.

Lexa raises an eyebrow at the Skaikru expression, but inclines her head all the same.

“There is business I must attend to, yes,” she agrees, smiling gently. “I would have woken you sooner, but you barely made it into bed before the sun rose.”

Clarke can’t help her blush, but her grin is remorseless.

“Debriefing my messengers took longer than I thought it would.”

Lexa blinks once, face impassive as a still pond. “I find that adding intoxicants to any situation lends towards losing track of time,” she notes, tone a bit haughty.

A year ago Clarke might not have been able to tell that the dark haired girl was teasing. She might have been offended – argued. Now she just snorts, rolling her eyes.

“It’s too early for you to be feisty,” the blonde mutters, cracking her neck and stretching her arms above her head.

Lexa moves to sit on the edge of the bed, the corner of her mouth turned up the slightest bit, reaching out and tucking a strand of hair behind the reclining girl’s ear.

“The sun has been up for hours, and some of us don’t have the luxury of lounging around in bed.”

The teasing is mild, meant to acknowledge that Clarke is often out of bed and attending her own duties long before Lexa, and that the brunette worries but knows better than to push.

“I’ll try and keep my wild partying to a minimum,” Clarke huffs, leaning into the touch.

They kiss and it chases away the last lingering vestiges of the dream (memory), giving rise to something warmer, though no less intense. Clarke snakes her hands into Lexa’s hair, holding her close.

After a few moments of indulgence, the Commander pulls back, eyes apologetic but determined.

 _“I know what you are doing, but I can’t stay,”_ the older girl murmurs in trigedasleng, fighting for control, nostrils flaring.

“Can’t, or won’t,” Clarke asks, trailing a finger down her lover's throat and over her chest. She imagines that she can feel Lexa’s heart racing through the armor, beating so much faster than her expression suggests.

_“Klark…”_

Clarke smiles, reassuring, and cups Lexa’s cheek. “I know.”

“I would, but-”

“I know. It’s okay.”

Another kiss. Softer. Less heated but more intimate, like a promise that they will have all the time in the world. When Clarke pulls back, Lexa doesn’t move, her eyes closed tight and a wistful sigh escaping her lips.

“Go,” the blonde whispers, pecking the tip of her lover’s nose. “Before I change my mind.”

Blinking, the Commander takes a deep breath and stands, unable to resist stroking Clarke’s cheek one more time.

“Perhaps I will be able to call for a brief recess of the Council, and meet you at midday?” Lexa tries, but Clarke shakes her head.

“Let’s not make promises we can’t keep. We both know that with the summit so close, and the situation to the West, you’ll be lucky to leave the Council room before your 50th birthday.” Clarke smiles to show she understands. “How about we try for you coming back before dawn, and eating at least two meals today?”

Lexa sighs again, nodding. “As you wish.”

She makes her way to the door, pausing there and looking back, and they both pretend that her words are simply her agreement and not what they haven’t been able to bring themselves to say since Clarke woke in the infirmary almost a year ago.

“Tonight,” Lexa continues, hand gripping the door, an unconscious expression of how little she wants to leave the room. “I will do my best.”

Then she is gone.

Clarke lets out a shaky breath, flopping back onto the bed.

She is a coward.

She remembers the look on Lexa’s face when she woke up, after the battle – after the arrow. The Commander was pale and frightened, like a child who just discovered that the monsters under the bed were real. She was still covered in blood (red and black, theirs and hers), covered in dirt and the stench of battle. The older girl was shaking, holding her hand.

 

 _‘Klark,’_ she had whispered, voice trembling. _‘You live…’_

Clarke had nodded, unable to speak, throat swollen and lungs tired.

‘I... I am so sorry. I should have-’ Lexa had trailed off, swallowing hard. ‘ _I love you, Klark_. I lov-’

‘No,’ Clarke had croaked, then, forcing the air through her ravaged throat.

Lexa had looked at her, devastated, as if it was she and not the blonde who had been shot. She began to pull away, nodding, tears shining in her eyes.

‘No,’ Clarke had gasped again, hand gripping Lexa’s like it was the only thing keeping her alive. ‘Stay.’

For a moment, Clarke was sure Lexa would leave, would go and never come back, but after a full body shudder and a hard swallow, the Commander nodded and settled back beside her.

‘As you wish,’ the Commander had said, jaw clenching as if holding back from saying more.

 

Clarke hadn’t been ready to hear it, then, and Lexa hadn’t attempted to say it again, instead choosing to show her that she would be there – wouldn’t leave her or betray her again, and that they could move at Clarke’s pace.

Clarke hadn’t been ready then, but she is ready now. She wants Lexa to say the words, but she can’t bring herself to ask for them, or to say them first.

“You’re a coward,” Clarke mutters to herself, rubbing roughly at her closed eyes.

“That’s a pretty harsh way to greet your friends,” a voice – a sweet, cocky, much missed voice – teases.

Clarke jerks upright again, eyes flying open.

Octavia leans against the wall, picking at her nails idly, barely able to bite back her smirk.

Clarke is on her feet and wrapped around her friend in seconds. Octavia barely has time to brace herself before her arms are full of excited blonde.

“When did you get in?” Clarke breathes, voice hoarse.

“Pretty much now,” Octavia replies, returning the hug, tucking her nose against Clarke’s hair.

Pulling back, Clarke grasps the younger girl’s arms, smiling hard enough that her cheeks ache. “Join me for breakfast?”

Nodding, Octavia squeezes Clarke’s hands before pulling away. “I could eat.”

Rushing to change, Clarke motions Octavia to sit.

“Have you been to see Raven yet?”

Octavia sucks her teeth, the sound both annoyed and fond.

“I stopped by her rooms first, but, no one was home. I assume the _Commander of Boom_ is hiding in her crypt.”

Pulling on clean underclothes and slipping a fresh shirt over her head, Clarke chuckles.

“You know she hates when you call it that.”

Octavia shudders. “It’s dark and damp and cold. Like being locked in a malfunctioning freezer.”

 _Like being back under the floor in the Ark_ , Clarke hears the unspoken fear.

“It makes her happy,” Clarke says, pulling on yesterday’s pants and cinching the belt in place.

“It lets her hide herself,” Octavia replies, tone bitter. She huffs, clearly over the topic. "Whatever."

Clarke looks over at Octavia - really looks at her friend.

She has been away for almost a month, joining Indra in the newly rebuilt TonDC for a diplomatic visit that ended up lasting weeks longer than planned.

When she hadn't returned on schedule, Clarke had immediately began to worry. Octavia had her own responsibilities that often sent her away from Polis, but she always came back or at least sent word.

The messages were vague and ominous at first – coordinated attacks from a small Unaligned army, poison in the water, game chased off – and Lexa had to practically sit on Clarke to keep her from taking a horse and riding out to join her friend.

Soon, though, scouts were dispatched and returned with more reliable information.

Not an army, but small groups of disenfranchised Trishana and Yujleda, emboldened by stories of Sankru defecting in the West.

No poison in the water, but the body of an unfortunate buck at the source of the creek tangled in the roots of a water side tree and rotting.

The game being spooked was a problem – attributable to the Yujleda – but nothing could be done but deal with the source of that problem.

Octavia looks exhausted, dark circles under her eyes, cheeks more hollow than when she left, and there is a new scar on her chin. It makes the blonde’s heart ache.

“You look… tired.”

Octavia snorts, rolling her eyes and wandering over to poke at the papers on Clarke’s desk. “Missed you too, Princess.”

“I mean it.” Clarke comes to stand beside her friend, resting a hand on the smaller girl’s back. “We can wait to catch up until after you get some rest.”

“Thanks, but I have been dreaming about Polis food since the day we left. Nothing beats those walnut pancakes and berries with fresh cream. I can sleep when I’m dead.”

It’s meant as a joke, but Clarke flinches anyway. Her nightmare comes rushing back, still too fresh, and her constant worry over the few of the 100 that are left roars through her veins, leaving her feeling weak and a little nauseated. (That Octavia is also one of her closest friends doesn’t help, but she knows it pisses the younger girl off when she treats her as anything other than the capable warrior that she has become, so she does her best to ignore the anxiety and fear that surges through her body.)

Octavia notices her reaction but doesn’t comment, choosing instead to bump Clarke with her shoulder.

“Stomach. Imploding.”

Clarke clears her throat, frowning. “Right.”

Offering her arm, Octavia leads Clarke through the room and out the door. “You can fill me in on all the riveting political bullshit I've missed since I’ve been gone.”

“You have no idea,” Clarke groans, smiling a little. “For a people obsessed with blood and revenge, the amount of time I have spent essentially doing paperwork is obscene.”

Octavia’s laugh loosens something that Clarke didn’t know was tight in her chest, allowing her to breathe more comfortably than she has in weeks.

“I did, you know?” the blonde says, apropos of nothing. Octavia raises an eyebrow but doesn’t say anything. “Miss you.”

The younger Blake’s smile is bright and open, and Clarke can’t help but return it.

"Good. You can show me by feeding me."

Clarke nods, leaning her head against Octavia's shoulder as they make their way to the kitchens.


	2. Prologue: Raven

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Commander nods, jaw clenching briefly, drawing herself up to her full height for a moment before seeming to realize she is looming over the mechanic. Hesitating only a second, she takes a seat on the bench across from the other girl.
> 
> Raven has never, in her history of knowing the other girl, ever seen her lower herself to anyone else’s level. She sits on her throne, or at the head of the table. Nowhere else. Now Raven is doubly suspicious.
> 
> \----
> 
> Raven is hearing ghosts, and Lexa needs a favor...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AN1: See first chapter for the disclaimer  
> AN2: I decided to break up essentially the Prologue into 4 chapters. So chapters 1 - 4 are the least angsty/most about setting the scene.  
> AN3: I will be taking longer to post after this week...

**RAVEN**

 

Raven can still hear her sometimes, A.L.I.E., whispering softly when no one else is around. Her voice is sweet and venomous as ever. It sends shivers down her spine, makes the scar at the base of her skull where Abby cut the implant out ache something awful. She wonders sometimes if she is going crazy – if being a pawn in Jaha’s sick game was the thing that finally broke her mind – or if there isn’t something more tangible, more sinister, at play.

She’s too scared to ask though, doesn’t think that either option is something she can live with if she knows for sure. So for now she pretends the voice is a perfectly acceptable coping method, doing her best to avoid even touching the scar when she runs her hands through her short, choppy hair.

Her hair.

It’s just long enough now that it gets in her eyes when she bends over her work, the tips poking at the edges of her lashes, annoying the shit out of her. If she didn’t miss her long waves so much, she’d have Clarke lop off what had grown again, going back to the short, bristly stubble she had post-surgery. She had looked, according to O, ‘totally badass,’ but ultimately the sense of vulnerability she felt at being without her ponytail won out over the coolness factor.

‘It makes you visible,’ A.L.I.E. murmurs in her ear, voice curling like sweet smoke around Raven’s senses. ‘That scares you, doesn’t it? Being visible. It has since the bullet – since the space walk.’

A.L.I.E. is insidious and Raven shudders, a tingling erupting at the back of her neck and zig-zagging down her spine to her tailbone. There is a part of her that enjoys it, and for that she hates herself. Hates the way her body reacts, like the voice is a current, electric, buzzing through her and turning her on just the slightest bit, like the voice is a caress. She feels like she is betraying herself.

“Good morning _Reivon_. May I enter?”

The Commander’s even voice cuts through the mechanic’s self loathing, not startling exactly, but sudden enough that Raven blinks hard and slow.

“You own the place,” Raven replies easily, waving a hand without looking up from her project.

The Commander frowns briefly, but doesn’t comment.

Raven is a little disconcerted that she didn’t hear the other girl approach – no one can sneak up on her anymore (well, no one except O, but that doesn’t count) – but she chalks it up to her exhaustion. It’s been weeks since she managed a full night’s sleep. She never sleeps right when Little Blake is away, and O has been gone for like a month on some stupid diplomatic trip.

Its been days since Raven has slept at all. She spends more nights than she would like to admit tinkering in her workshop, often until she collapses in a heap on the small cot she has set up in the corner, where she lies awake staring at the ceiling until she hears the steady hustle and bustle through the vents that signal another day has begun.

Raven’s lair is a walled off section of what the mechanic assumes was an underground parking lot attached to the Tower.

Before Raven had come, it had been used to house old salvaged tech – mostly to keep the people from Mt. Weather from getting it. One look at the piles of random junk and the mechanic had fallen in love, and the Commander had suggested that in her spare time, perhaps Raven would do her the service of determining what could be used and what was truly trash.

It is a move Raven is sure was shrewdly calculated to get the Skaikru girl to soften to her, or at least stop looking at her with barely contained loathing, which totally worked and Raven isn’t even embarrassed at being so easy. Not when there was so much tech that it took her months to sort the stuff – time spent when not recovering from her latest surgery or her other duties as Polis’s head (read: only) mechanic.

She had built the place – the fortress of badassary (which Clarke called the inner sanctum, and Octavia, the little shit that she was, called the crypt) – essentially with her own hands. In between figuring out how to set up an energy grid for the Tower (powering those elevators and the promise of hot showers had ingratiated Raven to a _lot_ of the Grounders that lived in and around the place) and working with Wick to design and build wind generators for some of the larger villages, Raven drafted plans for ventilation shafts and power benches and direct access to the power grid. When she wasn’t repairing the machinery transplanted from Arkadia (like Abby’s medical equipment and Kane’s communications junk), the dark haired girl taught herself how to arc weld and built what she called her Power Suit – a hydraulic exoskeleton that allows her to lift objects weighing hundreds of pounds with ease. It made implementing her plans almost a one woman job.

She had taken an old, musty space and built a laboratory for her mechanical experiments practically single handedly (to be fair, Wick helped, and Octavia and Clarke made sure neither of them died doing something stupid).

Regardless of all her efforts, though, Raven knows who made it happen – who clearly duped her into being productive when all she had wanted to do was curl up and die and even O could only get her as far as swallowing food put into her mouth. She is grateful, and her gratitude makes her resentful, which in turn makes her feel guilty. She compensates by forcing herself to act as if she has forgotten everything that came before.

The Commander inclines her head minutely and takes a tentative step into the space.

“What can I do for you, Commander?”

The Grounder raises an eyebrow from her position near a table full of junk Raven set aside to tinker with later.

She stands in what Raven likes to call her, ‘I’m nervous but too badass to admit it, so I am gonna stare you down’ stance. The one with her shoulders squared wide and her hands at the small of her back, but her head tilted a little to the right and her eyes restless (thought never _shifty_ ).

Raven has spent a lot of time with the Commander the last few months – a hazard of being so close to the younger Griffin – and she is nothing if not observant, so she has become a sort of expert on Heda and Lexa’s micro-expressions. (A book Raven borrowed from Abby about neurology claimed that victims of chronic abuse are naturally more inclined to be able to read body language because of priming in their neural pathways, but Raven doesn’t like to think of herself that way, so she pretends that Lexa is easier to read than people think.)

Raising an eyebrow of her own, Raven waits.

A year ago, Raven would have broken the silence first, thinking she had somehow displeased the Commander (the girl had a vaguely disapproving air to her), and wanting to go for broke and offend as much as possible if that was the case. Now though, she knows the Commander just takes more time to compose what she deems an appropriate response.

Clearly she wants something. Something that only Raven can provide for her. Raven has become tangentially fond of the Commander (for Clarke’s sake, _obviously_ ), but she is looking forward to extorting her for all she’s worth. Maybe she’ll finally convince her to let her have the small set of Western facing rooms on the mostly empty Ambassador’s level – the ones with the set up that she could use to make a Jacuzzi…

Finally, the Grounder’s eyes (a light, almost soft green today, despite the unnatural light and hard, grey edged environment) flit to the side briefly, and Raven doesn’t bother holding back a smirk. The Commander exhales sharply through her nose, the very corner of her mouth turning upward. To Raven it’s the same as if she has gotten the stoic girl to snort liquid through her nose, and she lets out a little ‘heh’ of victory.

Lexa moves forward towards the seated mechanic, reaching into her pocket and pulling out a folded piece of paper. She hands it to Raven.

“I require you services, _Reivon_.”

Both of Raven’s eyebrows shoot up, and she bites her lip to keep from sniggering. The Commander notices her reaction and stands just that much straighter, and Raven knows – just knows – the older girl is uncomfortable.

Raven and Octavia have been teaching her the finer points of the lewd double entendre, O even managing to get Lexa to accidentally drop a ‘that’s what she said’ on Clarke. Lexa’s mind, while brilliant in strategy and war, is an odd sort of innocent that the former delinquents take a rude pleasure in corrupting.

Taking the paper without comment, because Lexa is at the stage in her retraining where Raven feels it is better to let her stew in it, Raven unfolds it and takes a look. A crudely drawn design, sketched out in honest to God pencil and not that thick soft charcoal that the Grounders are so fond of using, is scratched out on the page.

Before she can comment, Lexa speaks, halting and a bit stiffer than she has been in a while.

“It has been a… trying year. For all of your people – our people – to be sure but, perhaps more so for some?”

She clears her throat, unconsciously shifting her bottom jaw in that way she has when she is trying to bite back emotion. It sends a weird pang to Raven’s stomach, which she promptly ignores.

“ _Klark_ has recently expressed interest in creating art again,” Lexa pauses, frowning and pursing her lips for a moment. “I believe it would aid in her wishes.”

Raven swallows, acutely aware that the burning in her throat is a mix of sudden longing (for what the two girls share, clearly, not anyone in particular) and a soft sort of hope for her friends’ happiness.

“Lexa you… you understand that I’m a _mechanic_ and not a _carpenter_ , right?” the short haired girl asks, fumbling a little with the trigedasleng terms but wanting to be sure Lexa gets it. She hasn’t quite gotten the hang of the language yet – probably a subconscious rebellion against having to assimilate – but she’s picked up enough from Clarke and Octavia to drop a word here or there.

“Of course, _Reivon_ ,” Lexa assures, smiling genuinely now. “The table itself will be built by another. The design of the electric component would be your part in this.”

Raven narrows her eyes, suspicious.

“Why are you grinning like that? Is this going to get me in trouble?”  
  
Lexa lets out a small chuckle, shaking her head. “No.” She stops, looking as if she is deciding how much she wants to say. “This may be the first time in our less formal acquaintance that you have used my given name.”

Raven isn’t sure what to do with that – she is pretty sure that this might actually be true, but is more than a little taken aback that the Commander would notice something like that – so she ignores it. She does take note that the other girl knew better than to suggest friendship.

“Right.” She clears her throat, blinking and looking back down at the plans. “So, you want me to build Clarke a light box for her spiffy new drafting table.” It’s not a question.

The Commander nods, jaw clenching briefly, drawing herself up to her full height for a moment before seeming to realize she is looming over the mechanic. Hesitating only a second, she takes a seat on the bench across from the other girl.

Raven has never, in her history of knowing the other girl, ever seen her lower herself to anyone else’s level. She sits on her throne, or at the head of the table. Nowhere else. Now Raven is doubly suspicious.

“I saw an example of the device in a book Clarke found in the Room of Records. She mentioned that it would be something she would enjoy using.” Lexa’s face is as open as it has ever been, small sparks of excitement lighting her eyes and curling the corners of her mouth upward. “I could not find it again, but I knew if I provided you with the idea, you would understand.”

Raven’s mind feels slow, confused. She can’t fathom why Lexa is being so… nice. To be fair, it’s been a long time since the other girl was intentionally cold or nasty, but this is… freaking Raven right the hell out.

“Thanks?” Now Raven clears her throat. “I appreciate the vote of confidence, I guess.”

Lexa nods one, as she regards Raven seriously. “Aden speaks often of what you do here, creating _technology_. I have seen what you are capable of, beyond electrifying the elevators.”

“You mean powering,” the mechanic deflects, grinning. “I powered the elevators. If I electrified the elevators, we’d be in trouble.”

“Men powered the elevators. Perhaps it is more accurate to say that you animated them?”

“It’s aliiiive.” Raven shrugs but nods her head in agreement. “It is definitely impressive.”

Lexa snorts again. “Quite.”

Raven rubs at the scar at the back of her neck, embarrassed but oddly pleased. They have never spoken like this before (never really been alone together before) and it is hard not to be charmed by the Commander’s earnestness.

“I take payment in sugar, water, or salvage.”

There is a familiarity to their interaction that sneaks up on Raven. It spreads over her first, making her feel warm, like she does when she listens to O talk about training with the other sekons or when she watches Clarke work with her hands. It creeps up on her, but as soon as she recognizes the feeling it is gone – she forces it away.

This is the Commander. She may have come to accept that Clarke loves the girl, and that Octavia (secretly-not-so-secretly) worships the floor the Grounder walks on, but they themselves are not friends. She teases her with Octavia, and lets Clarke go on about her for hours at a time, but she herself just tolerates the Commander – and is appropriately thankful for allowing her to have this space – but that is it.

And that is all that is expected from her. No one would dare even hint at forgiveness. Not after Finn (even now the thought of him makes her ache and want to scratch out the Commander’s eyes). Not after being strung up to that tree, and certainly not after the Commander had come for her with her dagger on the battlefield, as Clarke lay bleeding between them…

Raven shudders, remembering herself and who she is with.

“I’ll see what I can do, Commander,” the mechanic says, all business now.

Lexa seems to understand what has happened and inclines her head, blinking hard once and standing again. She starts for the door.

Guilt, thick and hot at the back of Raven’s throat. She can allow herself to acknowledge that the Commander is trying without betraying her own need to be bitter too much.

“Lexa?”

The other girl pauses but doesn’t turn around. “Yes?”

“It’s a good idea. She’s gonna love it.”

Lexa nods. “I expect so. I thank you for your help in this.”

With a quiet swish of her sash, the Commander is gone.

Raven breathes out slowly, feeling like an asshole but still not ready to even think about apologizing.

Grabbing her slate board and a piece of ash-chalk, Raven looks over the plans again. Quirking her mouth to the side, she taps the chalk against her cheek. Yeah, she can do this. Probably in less than a day once the frame arrives.

Nodding to herself, she sighs.

She will show she is trying too (though not sorry, never fucking sorry) by banging out the greatest light box the world has seen in over a hundred years. Two hundred, even. Because Raven Reyes is a genius and refuses to do something meant for a friend halfway.

There are soft footsteps coming down the hall, and Raven can’t help but hum with amusement.

“Yo, Aden,” she calls, slipping the paper under the slate board and twisting to grab a large box from her table, before standing and moving to a proper workbench.

The kid appears a few seconds later, face flush with what Raven assumes is the excitement of youth (she wouldn’t know, but she doesn’t begrudge him any innocence he has managed to hold on to).

“Yo, _Reivon_!” he exclaims, smiling wide. He has come a long way from the serious little mini-Commander he was when she first met him, and Raven likes to think she had a hand in that.

“Ready to get down to business, little man?” she asks, grinning back at him.

“Otaim,” he replies, nodding eagerly and moving to stand opposite her at her station.

“Alright buddy, let’s get this show on the road then.”

He reaches for the tools in the open bin on the table, eyes already intense with focus.

_tbc.._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A lot of stuff happened in that missing year. Much will be revealed, but if you have any questions feel free to ask.


	3. Prologue: Leksa

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As she sits and reaches for one of the large serving bowls from her position at the head of the table – Klark to her right, Oktevia to her left – Leksa allows herself a moment to take it all in. It is a rare day when her table is full; more often than not, she takes her meals alone or with Klark – and occasionally Aden – and she finds the (mostly) quiet murmur of conversation and sounds of familiarity warms her in places she did not know were cold. Oktevia and Reivon lean closer to each other, temples practically touching, expressions too purposefully innocent to be anything but trouble, Klark grins at them, eyes shining with contentment, and Leksa feels herself relaxing fully.
> 
> \---
> 
> A long day at the office, a productive lunch, and a family dinner...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AN 1: See first chapter for disclaimers  
> AN 2: I don't believe in betas. They're like Santa or the Tooth Fairy or truthful politicians... (This isn't true, but I am too lazy and impulsive to search for one...)  
> AN 3: The dialogue in italics, 99% of the time, is trigedasleng. I do this for 2 reasons - I am lazy and don't feel like translating, and, because it is Lexa's first language she understands it and since the chapter is from her POV, so should we.  
> AN 4: All the names have been Grounder-ized, for the same reason. If there is confusion, lemme know in the comments and I will clear it up.

**LEKSA**

 

The voices of the council had become a low droning almost an hour ago, and the Commander knows there is so much left to do. But she is troubled – distracted – unable to concentrate on the goings on.

It’s nothing specific or simple, nothing that can be confronted head on and dealt with in the swift and brutally efficient manner that she is accustomed to, but rather a heavy dread that sits in her stomach, growing steadily every day. Hearing that Oktevia has returned and seeing Indra here in the council helps, but Leksa feels something building.

It reminds her of before, when she lived her day to day life on battlefields and in trenches, covered in blood and sweat, trying desperately to reach a peace through force. That sense of something dire just around the corner, coming to rip away all that she’s worked for.

It reminds her of the feeling that sat in her stomach right before the conclave, right before she lost everything that had been her world in one fell swoop.

It reminds her of opening that box…

Something is coming. She feels it in her chest, and sees it in her people. She sees it in the way that Klark sends out more scouts and confers with Titus in whispers when they return and the reports from the West. She sees it in the haggard expression on Indra’s face, and in the curt messages sent by Oktevia in her absence. She sees it in the way that Reivon has begun to quietly build an arsenal of defensive weapons and armor, and the worry on Aden’s face whenever he comes back from his sojourns into the City.

The Commander is a woman of action, but there is nothing she can do now – no clear course to take – to stop whatever is coming. She is forced to wait, and watch, and hope that when the enemy shows itself, she will be prepared to do what is necessary.

Biting back a sigh, the girl presses the hard edge of a buckle against her thigh. The pain sharpens her focus some, brings her back to the moment at least.

Her Councilors have been arguing for hours now, going back and forth with their petty squabbling like children. Any other time and the Commander would silence them, shame them for their behavior, but she understands that with the summit do close it is better to let them be petty now – get it out of their systems.

Tomorrow, she will bring them to heel and begin the true preparations. For now, though, she resigns herself to listening to their disgraceful ranting.

“Heda,” Titus voice cuts through the noise, calm and placating. “ _Perhaps a short recess is in order? Give ourselves time to consider what has already been said?_ ”

Leksa closes her eyes for a moment, wanting so desperately to make it so, but she hesitates, knowing how little time there is to get things settled so they can move forward.

“ _I would second this,_ Heda,” Indra speaks up, nodding in deference. “ _We waste time with nonsense like fools when there is much to be done._ ”

The woman glares at the other council members – generals in peace time, almost all. Her dark eyes linger harshly on a few in particular. “ _Perhaps if certain among us had time to collect themselves, we would be through with business before the next snow._ ”

It is the most tactful Indra has ever been.

Looking closely at her most trusted general, Leksa can see that she is tired. There are lines underscoring her eyes, and her posture is rigid – she favors her left side. The business in Tondisi with the Broadleaf and Glowing Forest defectors has taken its toll on her.

Voices rise in protest, but the Commander holds up a hand and they fall silent. If it were just her own suffering, she would grit her teeth and bear it, but she would rather have her mentor’s mentor fresh when they get down to the true business. (She ignores the voice that whispers that maybe she feels a fondness for the older woman, a kinship beyond the fight, because it is not their way.)

“ _We will break for two hours. I expect that after some food and space, we will all be ready to move forward and come to a reasonable accord?_ ”The Commander says mildly, but of the other fourteen people in the room, six look down briefly in shame.

The council room empties, until only Leksa and three others remain.

Kein smiles kindly at her, his remaining eye amused, before turning to Indra.

“ _I was wondering how long you would last_ ,” he teases gently, accent making his words a bit larger and clumsier.

Indra grunts, annoyed. “I find that I can no longer suffer childish foolery when there is work to be done,” she mutters in gonasleng, jaw flexing.

“Was there ever a time?” Kein asks, grinning. It makes the scar that runs down his cheek – starting at the eyebrow and coming to an end almost at his chin – appear deeper, but takes nothing away from the quiet calm at his center.

The Commander envies him that.

Indra rolls her eyes and shrugs, but Leksa can see the fondness she feels for the Skaikru man in the softening at the corners of her mouth.

“ _We have been given a short respite, Markus. Why waste it harassing me?_ ” she growls.

Now Kein laughs, the sound light and low and pleased.

“ _How would you know you’re home if I left you in peace?_ ”

Indra snorts now, almost a huff, and Lexa is struck by the odd familiar intimacy of the exchange. She does not comment, just observes as Kein moves towards the door, after a respectful bow and ‘Heda’ in her direction, pausing only to lay a gentle hand on Indra’s stunted arm – the left one, lost just blow the elbow.

It’s long healed, but the Commander knows the older woman is sensitive about it. That she doesn’t bat an eye, just turns with the man – again, only after a nod and ‘Heda’ to her – surprises Leksa.

“ _If you draw attention to the worm, you frighten the catch_ ,” Titus says once they are alone.

Leksa can’t help but smile.

“ _I have no intention. It is… good to see her happy._ ”

Titus coughs a little, amused. “Or at least less surly,” he offers.

Leksa nods, tilting her head to the side until her neck pops. She can’t help the sigh that the release in pressure brings.

“ _You should go. Enjoy the sun and fresh air while you can._ ”

“ _You know there is much to do, Teacher. I would use this time to plan._ ”

His eyes are kind as he approaches her, stopping a respectful four feet away.

“ _You have worked tirelessly to prepare for the coming days. There is only so much that can be done alone._ ”

The Commander stares at her Flamekeeper for long moments, unblinking and in complete disbelief.

“ _Yes, Leksa, I am myself. And you are wasting time better spent resting your mind and nourishing your body._ ”

“ _I feel as if this might be a test of my resolve…_ ” she admits, head tipped back, chin thrust high.

The man smiles a small, sad smile.

“ _You learned some of my lessons too well, and others not all at._ ” He clears his throat. “ _Go. Eat. Let the wind take away some of your worry – at least for a time._ ”

Leksa would be lying if she didn’t admit at least to herself that she was excited at the idea.

“ _Will you not join me?_ ”

The corner of Titus’ mouth curls upward ever so slightly, and she can see he is amused at the offer. “ _I would wager that there are others whose presence you would appreciate more in your limited free time._ ”

“Titus…” she begins in protest, but her voice goes no further. He is right. She can already see sparkling blue eyes…

With a nod, she dismisses him, grateful for his understanding. He leaves her presence with the appropriately respectful ‘Heda’ and a small bow.

 

Klark is not in their room or in her study, nor in the small garden she likes to sit in when the sun is past its highest and the shadows are right for sketching. As much as she wishes to see the other girl, Leksa’s time is short, and she makes her way to the ground. (The speed with which the elevators rise and descend are amazing, and Leksa wishes not for the first time she could find a way to properly convey to Reivon her gratitude.)

If she can’t find her lover, there is someone else she would not mind seeing before returning to the tedium of the council.

 

She finds Oktevia exactly where she thought she would – in the sparring ring.

The girl snarls at her opponent, a much larger man at least a decade her senior. The expression makes the scar on her cheek – a jagged line that starts at the corner of her mouth and travels across her face almost to her ear, like a macbre half-smile – pull tight and flush red. It is a reminder of how quick the young warrior is (the sword was aimed to separate her head from her body) and makes her look all the more fierce. She is a sight to behold.

Leksa frowns, though, as she observes Indra’s Second. There is a there is a new scar on the girl’s face, a thin, angry line down her chin that makes the cleft more pronounced, her eyes are hollow, and her cheeks sharper than when she left. She has lost at least a dozen pounds, and moves sluggishly, swinging her staff as if it is a broad sword, leaving herself open to attack.

The man, a seasoned warrior named Hektor, twirls his staff and moves in a feint, getting past Oktevia’s guard and striking her soundly in the ribs. To her credit, the Second doesn’t flinch, just grunts and spins to sweep the man off his feet, but Leksa is troubled – the quiet dread dropping more heavily into her stoamch.

In battle that is the sort of error that costs warriors their lives. If Hektor were an enemy, if he had been wielding a spear or a blade…

Oktevia is wild, but not sloppy. Not for a long time, anyway.

The match ends quickly, Oktevia victorious after her false start. She wins with a bold rush at the man that makes him flinch long enough for her to roll between his legs and pop up, hitting the back of his neck with the dull end of her weapon. Leksa has to work to keep the amusement and small spark of pride from her face.

Oktevia offers the man a hand, and after a moment he takes it, grumbling but fond, as if they are well acquainted with each other.

He is not of Polis, his tattoos and scars marking him as Broadleaf. Leksa frowns, the dread spreading up into her chest, making her swallow hard and force herself to breathe normally. Of all the clans for Oktevia to makes ties with…

The combatants turn to her and bow, and the Commander inclines her head, shaking off the sour taste of _distrust_ that watching the two of them leaves in her mouth. She motions for Hektor to toss her his weapon, and he does so quickly and without hesitation, exiting the ring.

Oktevia raises an eyebrow but doesn’t comment.

Leksa enters the ring, twirling her staff expertly – indulging in whip quick flourishes. She is quietly pleased when the younger girl tilts her head, clearly impressed.

They communicate solely with their eyes, Leksa daring Oktevia to keep up and the younger girl accepting the challenge, jutting out her chin and grinning.

Oktevia takes her stance, holding the staff more like a pike or long ax, and the Commander bites back a sigh. The smaller girl really is too old to be a Second, but, she still has so much to learn. (To be fair to both the First and Second, there has not been much time for formal instruction – only survival, even after the end of the City of Light.)

The Skaikru girl’s teeth flash as they begin to circle each other, tongue poking out from between them.

She is on her back seconds after they come together, the Commander tapping her chest lightly with the end of her staff before backing up a step. She coughs once, flipping back to her feet and cracking her neck.

“One,” Leksa counts, smug.

Oktevia strikes without warning, swinging the staff down towards Leksa’s head with enough strength to force the older girl’s weapon down. The Second thrusts forward, using Leksa’s own staff as a brace and guide, the blunt knob of the staff prodding hard into the Commander’s sternum, forcing the air out in a whoosh.

“One-one.”

Nodding, the Commander sucks air into her lungs and chuckles, readjusting her grip. “ _Best of five?_ ”

Oktevia laughs, short but loud and pleased, and the sound warms Leksa some, dispels a bit of the heaviness in her abdomen.

“ _Make it Lucky Seven and you’re on, Commander._ ”

Without another word they begin to circle each other again.

The Commander can see something shifting in the younger girl as they spar. She tightens her stance, her movements become sharper and more efficient, her guard and poise something much more befitting a warrior of her experiences. They are an even five-five for almost an hour before Leksa goes all out and ends the game.

They will both be sporting bruises – Oktevia a possibly fractured finger from a sloppy block, and the Commander a deeply traumatized rib from a masterful feint, and when they are done there is no time for a meal, but Leksa is at ease, calmer and more at peace than she has been in a long time.

 

***

 

The council meeting runs later than Leksa would like, but not nearly as long as it could. The reprieve seems to have done the trick, and after reconvening, they have made enough progress with their preparations for the summit that the Commander feels no guilt in adjourning just after sunset.

When Leksa makes it back to her rooms, it is not to the silence of an intently reading Klark as she expects. A chorus of soft, feminine laughter filters through the cracks in the door, and she frowns, curious.

The three Skaikru girls don’t bother rising from their positions at the table, merely look over and acknowledge her with their eyes. It is technically an insult to her station, but the sight of the comfortable familiarity warms something inside Leksa that she didn’t know was cold.

Klark sits across from Oktevia, their lower legs tangled together under the table, her blonde braids swishing as she laughs at something the younger girl has said.

Oktevia sits beside Reivon, arm slung across the mechanic’s chair casually, reaching across her own body with her other arm to steal food from the other girl’s plate as she talks. She taps out an unconscious rhythm against the tan skin of her friend’s shoulder blade.

Leksa notes that her seat at the head of the table is empty and her place set, ready for her.

Closing the door behind her, she unclasps her shoulder guard and hangs it at the appropriate place along the wall.

“Oktevia. Reivon.” She acknowledges, coming to stand at the table.  She looks at Klark, hesitant. Klark looks back at her, patient, her expression open and pleased (almost happy) in a way that it hasn’t been in weeks. Leksa inclines her head, allowing a small smile, trying not to appear so eager. “Klark.”

“Don’t be shy on our account, Commander.” Reivon rolls her eyes, bolder now that they are not alone as is her custom.

Leksa raises an eyebrow at this, but leans over and pecks Klark on the lips quickly anyway. The smile that she gets in return is worth any discomfort at such a (semi) public display of affection. Reivon doesn’t comment further, only huffs and reaches out to snatch something off of Klark’s plate.

As she sits and reaches for one of the large serving bowls from her position at the head of the table – Klark to her right, Oktevia to her left – Leksa allows herself a moment to take it all in. It is a rare day when her table is full; more often than not, she takes her meals alone or with Klark – and occasionally Aden – and she finds the (mostly) quiet murmur of conversation and sounds of familiarity fills her chest with a light sort of feeling. Oktevia and Reivon lean closer to each other, temples practically touching, expressions too purposefully innocent to be anything but trouble, Klark grins at them, eyes shining with contentment, and Leksa feels herself relaxing fully.

The last month has been especially trying for them – the unrest in the South and West, the absence of Oktevia which sent Klark into an almost manic state and Reivon into a sort of dissociate stasis, and the preparations for the summit... She would hesitate to admit it aloud, but holding the other three girls in her sight, being able to witness herself that they are all safe and relatively well, brings with it a relief that goes bone deep. She has no interest in questioning why, is more than content to just let it happen, because life has been painful enough without reason and these girls have taught her that there is no shame in the simple appreciation of happiness.

Reaching for the food on her plate, Leksa is surprised when Klark’s hand darts forward and takes the meat she had been going for. Blinking rapidly the Commander frowns, more confused than annoyed as her lover grins and pops the food into her mouth, blue eyes sparkling with playful mischief.

“Getting slow in your old age, Commander,” Reivon mocks, but there is a smile on her lips that is almost friendly.

It gives rise to a soft sort of fondness in Leksa’s chest; it pleases her that they are coming to a place where there can be more than bitterness and pain between them. (There is a part of her that quietly hopes for friendship, though she knows it might never come.)

She must look at the other girl too long (or maybe some of what she is feeling has shown through her normally iron control), because Reivon raises an eyebrow and snorts at her.

“Don’t be rude, Reyes,” Oktevia scolds, gently nudging the mechanic’s shoulder with her chin. “Clearly the Commander doesn’t know the rules of the game.”

Leksa frowns, confused, watching as the young warrior attempts to steal food from Reivon’s plate and her hand is swatted away. Reivon is much more successful at taking from Klark’s plate, though if the blonde is attempting to stop her, it is half hearted at best. Reivon looks as if she has been skipping meals and sleep, and Klark is the worrying kind. It wouldn’t surprise Leksa if the younger Skaikru girls had devised this game in an attempt to slyly make sure their friend ate enough.

After a few moments, the other girls go back to their conversation, joking and teasing about things for which the Commander has no reference. They continue their game of thieving food, with Reivon being the most successful (adding weight to Leksa’s theory) and Oktevia managing to steal something off the Trikru girl’s own plate.

Watching for a few minutes, letting their mood of general good cheer wash over her, Leksa makes her move, hands a blur.

“Seriously Commander, how are you not grasping the object of this activity?” Reivon asks, clearly baffled as she looks down at her plate and the extra food that has appeared there.

“Raven…” Oktevia begins softly, but Leksa gives the barest shake of her head, and the younger girl quiets, reaching for her own food.

“I am Heda,” Leksa says, confident and kind. “I provide for my people, not take away.”

She hopes her meaning is clear.

Reivon looks at her silently for long moments, expression becoming guarded, and the Commander knows the girl has understood her overture. The mechanic can process at her own pace, Leksa will be patient.

“And _I_ ,” Klark breaks in, interrupting the moment, picking up some food from her own plate and holding it out, “am Wanheda. And I command your _not-_ death by starvation, O mighty Heda who skipped both breakfast, _and lunch_ today so she could spar with O.”

She says it playfully, but her fingers are insistent and Leksa has no choice but to accept the morsel into her mouth.

The action does what Leksa is sure was intended, breaking the building tension.

With a chuckle, Reivon plucks a carrot off her plate and holds it up.

“Hey Princess? Think fast!”

The food zips through the air, and Leksa is impressed that Klark manages to open her mouth in time, even if the vegetable bounces off her teeth and rolls under the table.

“You guys need a dog,” Oktevia mutters, bending over and grabbing the rogue carrot, before brushing it off and popping it into her mouth. “Wasting food is a damned shame.”

“Say ‘ahh,’” Reivon coos, taking some meat off her own plate and tossing it up.

Oktevia catches it in her mouth without difficulty, chewing a few times then sticking out her tongue.

“Ew, O, seriously?” Klark chides, laughing and wrinkling hr nose.

“All the things that you’ve seen and see-food is what grosses you out? Really?” Reivon is incredulous.

Klark just sticks out her own tongue.

Leksa is so confused, as she often is when the three Skaikru girls are together.

“Seafood? But… that is venison?”

Klark chuckles, leaning over and kissing her cheek sweetly. Reivon laughs, mood relaxed again, (Leksa can’t quite keep up with her sometimes, but she thinks that this is progress and so it pleases her), and Oktevia is clearly charmed.

“No, not as in sea. See as in ‘see.’” Reivon points to her own eyes. “As in you see the food.”

Leksa snorts, amused at the wordplay. “Clever.”

The mechanic grins, as if she had invented the joke herself, and Oktevia pokes out her tongue again. Leksa can’t help the short, delighted chuckle that escapes, choosing to ignore the voice at the back of her mind that tells her she has let them too close, that she is being weak. (She has been ignoring the voice more and more often over the past year, listening instead the instinct that tells her to trust these girls, that they are her people.)

“Hey Commander?” Reivon calls. Leksa blinks, giving the girl her undivided attention. Brown eyes crinkle at the corners, and the grin she sports is tentative but trying. “Say ‘ahh.’”

 

Leksa is much better at the game than Klark is. They all end the evening smiling, well fed and in good humor.

Reivon and Oktevia wander off together, turning left towards the younger girl’s rooms and away from the elevator that would lead the mechanic down to her domain.

As has become their custom, once they have retired to their bedroom, she and Klark undress each other in silence. Tonight, though, Klark takes her time, fingers efficient as always, but hands pausing occasionally to stroke skin lovingly.

“Klark?” Leksa asks. They are not strangers to intimacy, but it has been some time since either has had the mental or physical energy.

Klark’s grin is mischievous and free of worry as she pushes Leksa down onto the bed; Leksa would do anything to keep it so.

"You’ve had a long day, you should lie down.”

“Sleepy?” the Commander asks raising an eyebrow, deciding to be playful.

“I’d like you on your back, if that’s what you mean,” the blonde replies easily, and Leksa’s breath catches in her throat.

The younger girl doesn’t give her a chance to respond, just movesto straddle her and captures her mouth in a heated kiss.

_tbc..._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the last of the fluff for a long time... I thought I would give extra since it is mostly angst and feels from here on in...
> 
> Next chapter - the last in the Prologue - is in Octavia's perspective.


	4. Prologue: Octavia

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It’s too much. Too close to what she wants – what they both desperately seem to want – but also to soon.
> 
> Too soon after the City of Light, which they have never spoken of, because just mentioning it, Raven starts to tremble and can’t look anyone in the eye for days afterward.
> 
> Too soon after Lincoln (Octavia isn’t sure there will ever be a time that isn’t too soon after Lincoln, because even the thought of his name still makes her chest ache like a raw, open wound, and she can still see A.L.I.E. in her friend’s eyes sometimes, smug at her pain).
> 
> She isn’t ready. And neither is Raven. (At least, that is what she will keep telling herself, ignoring the hurt in her stomach when she pushes the older girl away and sees that look.)
> 
> \----
> 
> Octavia is a coward. Octavia is brave.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AN 1: See first chapter for disclaimers
> 
> AN 2: Got 99 problems, and not havin' a beta is one, a.k.a., I don't edit I just post.
> 
> AN 3: The dialogue in italics, 99% of the time, is trigedasleng, unless contextually otherwise. I find it a little distracting to have the raw trigedasleng in there when this character is fluent and so there is the potential for a lot of dialogue in that tongue.
> 
> AN 4: This is the last of the prologue. The fluff ends here. You have been warned.
> 
> AN 5: This chapter is, as always, for dreamsheartstory, who I blame for my The 100 fic in general. This chapter is ALSO for joethelion; I hope I am warming you to Octavia, my tiny, fighty grounder baby.

**OCTAVIA**

Raven frowns in her sleep, lower lip caught between her teeth, her scarred hands thrown onto Octavia’s pillow. Even in sleep, the older girl can’t seem to escape her demons. It makes Octavia’s heart ache something awful, and she sets down the tray of food she had slipped away to collect from the kitchens, moving to the side of the bed.

The younger girl wants nothing more than to make it all better, but she knows it isn’t possible (and also knows exactly what Raven would say to _that_ impulse), and so she resists the urge to lean in and kiss the sleeping girl’s brow, sitting down beside her and rubbing her arm firmly instead.

“Sun’s up, time to fly.”

Raven doesn’t stir – doesn’t even mutter in her sleep – and Octavia’s chest tightens. She knows what this means.

Raven’s been at it again, staying in her workshop and working until she is half blind, fighting sleep, forgetting to eat, shunning human contact. Now Clarke’s quiet fretting made sense.

Octavia hates it when Raven gets like this.

It means she will be on edge and in pain (more so than usual). It means she’ll be out of it, distracted.

She’ll get that look in her eyes that means she’s slipped back to  _then -_  to the battle and to being possessed by another intelligence – and she’ll be trapped in a loop of remembering that she was forced to hurt the people she cared about.

She'll relive the second surgery (the one on her brain that had nearly killed her) that caused the flood of agony that lasted for weeks…

Raven likes to think that she can fool Octavia and Clarke, but despite being a genius and an actual rocket scientist, the older girl isn’t nearly as clever about this as she thinks. She has always been expressive, helpless against wearing her heart on her sleeve, and any distance or lack of affect is supremely telling and only sends up the warning flares. (Even Lexa notices, though Clarke has enough tact to only mention her concern to Octavia.)

“You’re going to end up killing me,” the young warrior sighs, slipping off her boots and leggings and crawling back into the bed.

There is no sense in waking Raven now; she’ll sleep the sleep of the dead until she is good and ready. Forcing the issue would only shock her system and make her jumpy and cranky, throwing her off for the rest of the day. Also, if the mechanic is tired, Octavia would rather let her sleep.

Cuddling up to the older girl’s back, Octavia allows herself to rest her forehead on the back of Raven’s neck, against the thick, jagged scars there.

She hopes she will be around when Raven wakes up, though she will have to see to her duties and meet up with Indra in the next few hours. Raven is always disoriented when she wakes from a sleep like this, and Octavia wants to be there to help bring her back to herself.

 

Breakfast is cold, but not long cold, when Raven first twitches, snapping Octavia out of her dozing fugue state. The older girl has turned in her sleep, face pressed against the warrior’s throat, finger tangled in her shirt.

Another jerk from Raven, and Octavia is wide awake and alert. It would be one of those days, then.

“Raven? Wake up, pretty bird,” Octavia whispers around strands of dark hair. She carefully rubs a calloused palm over the trembling girl’s back, careful to keep the touch light and not make her feel trapped.

Raven whimpers once, like a little sob, then explodes into a sitting position, panting and sweating, eyes wide and wild. She reaches out without looking, hands searching behind her.

“O-Octavia?”

Octavia doesn’t move to get up, only lays a hand gently on the mechanic’s lower back (over the other scar, the one that changed everything and left her vulnerable to what followed).

Raven flinches violently, but the warrior doesn’t move her hand.

“I’m here,” Octavia assures. “Just breathe.”

Raven takes a deep, shuddering breath and twists around, hands groping.

Without hesitation, Octavia takes the older girl’s hand, holding her breath. When Raven falls back into her, the smaller girl sighs in relief, chancing an embrace.

Raven doesn’t move away, instead turning and burrowing into her arms, still panting a little.

“You’re here,” the mechanic breathes, face once again pressed into Octavia’s neck.

“Yeah,” Octavia whispers, voice catching. She nearly wasn’t – a few times over – but she can never tell Raven that.

“You’re not allowed to leave for so long again,” Raven insists, one hand slipping under Octavia’s shirt to rest over her heart, the other trapped between them but managing to tangle in the waistband of her underclothes.

“Oh yeah?” Octavia asks, voice strained but for other reasons now.

Raven always gets handsy when Octavia returns from longer trips, but this is… bordering on something they have been dancing around for a long time now.

“Yeah. Tell your boss that you’re staying here or you quit.” Raven sounds steadier already, some of her usual confidence making its way into her tone.

Raven’s hand presses against her chest, firm and not at all sexual, and Octavia releases the breath she has been holding in a tired whoosh.

“Rae…”

“Sssshh, no. Just, can we pretend for like a second that you have a choice, and that it would be me?” Raven pleads, low and shaky and filled with so much yearning.

It shatters Octavia’s heart into a million pieces. Guilt and longing take turns battering against the smaller girl’s ribcage, and she pulls her _friend_ closer.

 _“It’s you, love. Always. You are my second chance,”_ Octavia says, knowing Raven won’t understand (or believe her), but needing to say it anyway.

Taking a deep breath, Raven nods once.

“I don’t know what that means exactly, but I’ll assume that it involves retiring to become my trophy wife,” the mechanic murmurs against Octavia’s skin, laying a kiss there before pulling away and sitting up.

Octavia feels Raven’s retreat (both the physical and the emotional) like an icy blast of air whipping across her body even as her skin burns where the older girl’s lips pressed against her, and she shudders.

“And, oh look, you’re already fetching my breakfast in bed. You’re so good at this, little Blake.”

Octavia snorts, sitting up and rubbing her chest. Her heartache is a physical thing now.

“An apology for passing out on you last night,” she replies, moving off the bed to retrieve the tray.

She lays it on the bed next to Raven, who waits until Octavia is seated before reaching for a hunk of bread and hardboiled egg and tucking herself against the warrior’s side.

The anxiety in Octavia’s stomach eases some, confusing considering how strange Raven is acting, but the younger girl goes with it, rubbing up and down her friend’s back and reaching for cooling slices of meat with her free hand.

They eat in comfortable silence, cocooned in a pocket of temporary warmth and contentment. Octavia purposefully pushes all thoughts not related to putting food in her mouth or enjoying Raven’s company out of her mind.

When she cleans up after them, though, the tight jittery feelings return. She’ll have to talk to Raven eventually – about _Tondisi_ and what happened there and what it means – but, she can’t bring herself to do it yet. Not when the older girl is actually smiling, and humming a nameless tune as she roots around in Octavia’s clothes chest to get at the clean pants and underclothes she keeps there for mornings after she has crashed, too tired to return to her own rooms.

“What do you think?” Raven asks, grinning and turning towards Octavia with two pairs of pants for consideration. “Brown, or, brown?”

Octavia pretends to ponder, tapping a slightly crooked finger against the scar on her chin.

“I’m feelin’ the brown today.”

They are trying for playful banter, but Octavia can see in the set of Raven’s shoulders and her shallower breathing that the mechanic is close to the edge. They both feel the words they have been avoiding beneath the surface.

 _‘I love you,’_ Octavia whispers inside her skull. “I’ll be away today. Indra wants to take me hunting.” Is what she says out loud.

 _‘I love you too,’_ Raven’s eyes reply. “Big, strong Grounder,” is what comes out of her mouth.

 _‘I’m afraid.’_ “I’ll be sure to bring home something tasty for dinner.”

 _‘I’m weak.’_ “You’d better. Otherwise I want a divorce.”

Octavia turns as Raven undresses, busying herself with pulling on her discarded pants and boots and her various weapons. “Try not to miss me too much.”

Looking back up, she sees that Raven is practically on top of her. The mechanic reaches out deliberately, adjusting some straps, tugging harder than strictly necessary.

“Who are you again?” she teases.

The warrior grins, waggling her eyebrows. “How did you even get in this room?

Raven rolls her eyes, but there is a smile at the corners of her mouth. “The door was open. Thought it was the outhouse. Definitely smells like it.”

“Hey!” Octavia grunts, moving forward to crowd into Raven’s space, to force her to give.

Instead of backing down, Raven moves closer, so that they are sharing air.

“There’s something you’re not telling me.” The statement is matter of fact, firm but without judgment.

“There’s a lot of stuff I don’t tell you,” Octavia admits, trying for the same tone but her throat is suddenly too dry.

Raven nods, blinking slowly and cocking her head to the side. (Octavia hates when she does that – it reminds her of when Raven wasn’t Raven, but A.L.I.E. instead.)

“You know you can tell me anything, right? I can handle it.”

The air turns sharp, painful, as Octavia forces herself to breathe. It’s tempting – the words are just on the tip of her tongue – but the younger girl remembers the raw, vulnerable state of the mechanic’s emotions. She remembers how fragile Raven looks when she is sleeping, in the middle of her nightmares, whispering things she would never say awake, and Octavia can’t bring herself o speak.

Not yet.

“Right. Speaking of handling, I remember you mumbling something about scrap metal for a new project,” she says instead.

Raven’s expression turns disappointed for a second before shifting to mild neutral – another A.L.I.E. mannerism Octavia can’t stand – and the older girl shrugs.

“Top secret mission, little Blake. Need to know basis.”

Octavia bounces on the balls of her feet, a little regretful and a lot curious.

“I’ve been told I’m skilled at both lifting things and moving them from one place to another.”

Raven seems to consider this for a moment, before tapping the end of Octavia’s nose gently with a fingertip and stepping away.

“I’ll let you know if your _skills_ are needed.”

Octavia opens her mouth to respond with something appropriately snarky, but there is a firm knock on the door.

“The _General_ would have you attend her, _Lieutenant_.”

Raven raises her eyebrow and smirks – insufferable – at her.

Groaning, Octavia closes her eyes and scrubs her face harshly with a hand. She’d lost track of time – napped longer than she thought. Indra would be in rare form all day.

“Go on, big bad Grounder girl. Impress me with your skills,” Raven mocks, moving closer and wrapping her arms around Octavia’s neck.

The younger girl’s heart slams against her rib cage; she is sure the mechanic can feel it.

“I-uh…”

“Bring me back something worthy, and maybe I’ll give you a reward.”

It’s too much. Too close to what she wants – what they both desperately seem to want – but also to soon.

Too soon after the City of Light, which they have never spoken of, because just mentioning it, Raven starts to tremble and can’t look anyone in the eye for days afterward.

Too soon after Lincoln (Octavia isn’t sure there will ever be a time that isn’t too soon after Lincoln, because even the thought of his name still makes her chest ache like a raw, open wound, and she can still see A.L.I.E. in her friend’s eyes sometimes, smug at her pain).

Too soon after Raven’s spectacular blowout with Wick (only 2 months ago), who was so hurt he left Polis in favor of going to _Tondisi_ to try and replicate a smaller version of the power grid found in the Tower.

She isn’t ready. And neither is Raven. (At least, that is what she will keep telling herself, ignoring the hurt in her stomach when she pushes the older girl away and sees _that_ look.)

Ducking out of the circle of Raven’s arms, Octavia smiles wanly. She is already colder for it.

“I’m always impressive,” she says, going for cocky but it falls flat. She knew it would, but she had to put up the effort.

Raven doesn’t comment, doesn’t say a word as Octavia retreats from the room, but, the look in her eyes and her silence speak volumes.

 ****

Months ago, back when Indra first regained enough strength to take her rightful place as _Tondisi’s_ Ambassador to Polis, she had insisted on taking Octavia on what she called a proper hunt. They had utterly failed at catching game that day – Octavia’s inexperience and insistence in treating a hunt like a battle making it impossible – but, Octavia has found something better.

A little shadow, no bigger than two fists curled around each other. An infant leopard, the color of smudged ash, shivering in the hollow of a tree. A search revealed the site of a skirmish nearby, claw marks deep in the earth, trampled by booted footprints. The Skaikru girl was convinced someone had killed the cub's mother, and had pleaded in her own way to Indra to let her take him in. Indra had adamantly refused.

Octavia named the little leopard Trikova and he went with her everywhere, until he got too large to reside in the City safely.

Indra advised her _Second_ to kill it quickly, because a handled creature could not survive the wild, but, Octavia couldn’t bring herself to do it.

Under the weight of Indra's disappointment and quiet rage at being disobeyed, Octavia disappeared into the forest for over a week (worrying Raven and Clarke sick, and compounding her _First’s_ annoyance exponentially), at the end of which time she came back, having successfully trained him to follow basic commands, and to wait for her in the forest North of the City.

 

Indra is as insufferable as anticipated. She wastes no time verbally dismembering Octavia’s state of dress, her tardiness, her efficiency – anything and everything, in ways she hasn’t since the girl was first under her tutelage.

Even as they stalk silently through the forest, Octavia can feel the judgmental look and exasperation of her _First’s_ eyes on her skin. It gets worse when Trikova – no longer little at nearly 50lbs, though not yet half the size he will be – drops suddenly from a tree to join them on the hunt.

“You will never learn to hunt properly if that creature keeps doing it for you, _Sky Girl_ ,” Indra mutters, supremely annoyed.

Octavia just grins.

This is an argument they have had since she found him.

“He missed you, Indra, he told me so,” the girl teases, reaching down to brush her hand over soft fur and gesture a command.

The juvenile panther rumbles and moves to the older woman, rubbing his head against her side as she crouches, waiting for their prey. Indra does her best to appear unaffected, but Octavia can tell she is a little charmed by the crinkle at the corner of her eyes.

Though Octavia has been on the ground for over a year now, and Indra’s _Second_ for most of it, beyond a few drunken outings with the other older _Second’s_ , exactly 2 hunts with her _First_ , and one with Lincoln (which ended in them distracting each other, because to be young and in love is chaos), there hasn’t been opportunity. Between the two wars – the one on the Mountain and the one with the City of Light – there hasn’t been time.

Indra insists that a warrior who cannot provide for herself is as worthless as a chair with two legs, and after the business at _Tondisi_ (where Octavia had watched her mentor, injured and exhausted, still lead an entire village of people in reconstruction, including hunting) Octavia is more inclined to accept that being a warrior and a leader was about more than being able to wield a sword and win on the battlefield.

(Clarke might say Octavia is growing up, but the younger Blake likes to think that maybe what’s really happening is that she – that they, all of the Sky People – are finally realizing that they are of the ground now, and that it is a question of either adapting or perishing.)

So, they track their prey, moving silently side by side (Indra still teases her about having feet like a pregnant ox, but Octavia knows she’s gotten better because she rarely startled birds from tress or mice from roots anymore).

They are on the trail of a large, seemingly drunk deer – the tracks change direction often, sometimes looking as if the thing is running, sometimes walking, meandering with no destination in mind. The odd behavior makes the hunt interesting, and they are amused by it for almost an hour before the stop.

Something changes in the forest – there is a shift in the air, a sudden stillness that all three of them sense at once.

They had traveled North-East from Polis to find wild game, miles away from the City – still on Trigeda land, but far away enough from the City and it’s carefully currated herds and hunting stock.

Trikova tenses, crouching low, ears flat to his skull, and Indra draws her long dagger from her belt with her remaining hand. Though Octavia brought a short bow for the hunt, she slowly puts it down and draws her own sword, taking a cue from her _First_ and her furred companion, and waits.

The young panther growls, low and dangerous – a sound Octavia has never heard him make before.

“Control your beast,” Indra whispers harshly, but it is too late.

Trikova lunges out of hiding, exploding from the bushes.

“Shit!”

“ _Sky Girl!_ ” Indra hisses, the name like a command that keeps the girl from breaking cover.

Arrows come sailing into their cover, missing both of them by inches and breaking Octavia out of her indecision. The fletching is familiar in style – _Broadleaf_ – and it makes the girl’s blood run cold.

Hektor had spoken of the schism among his people, of those abandoning their way and heeding a call westward, to the desert – to the dry wastes. This after the attacks, when he had come looking for his wife, who had taken their child in the night and disappeared.

Octavia flashes back to the last few weeks at _Tondisi_ , to watching Indra get injured and scores of their people die – and something in her snaps.

She had built too many funeral pyres in the last month. Had spent too many nights hearing death rattles and screams of pain. She hadn’t known how close she was to breaking until it was on her. She is a woman possessed.

Indra must see it because she growls out an _‘Oktevia,’_ but it is too late.

There are four of them – two in the tress, raining down arrows, and two on the ground, both wielding axes. They are both covered in fresh blood, and a large buck’s carcass sits, half cleaned, nearby.

Octavia ducks and rolls to the left as she springs out of the bushes, coming up behind the large of the men – surprising him – and sliding her sword through his neck. She uses her momentum to spin them, feeling the thud of arrows impact with his body.

“ _Shadow, up!_ ” she commands, pulling the blade free of the twitching body.

She feels Indra take up position at her  back, hears the sound of the older woman’s modified blade blocking the enemy’s axe. The girl spins, twirling around her mentor like they are dancing and striking low as Indra strikes high. They have fought together long enough that they don’t need words.

The man, who is large but also quick, throws himself backward while blocking, managing to avoid both of their attacks.

Octavia hears the sounds of arrows being loosed and doesn’t even hesitate (because if she was a wild thing before, after losing Lincoln she has become a feral creature), body checking Indra to the ground while bringing her sword up to deflect the projectile. It is a move she witnessed Lexa pull, and spent months mastering herself (the constant round coin sized bruises from fat, blunted arrows made Raven giggle every time she saw them).

She hears one ping resentfully off her blade, one whizzes by her cheek, barely missing her. One has her name written on it.

Octavia’s been hurt before – slashed, stabbed, burned, even graved by bullets. Every wound she has ever had does not compare.

It feels as if she’s been punched in the chest by a giant wearing spiked gauntlets. The impact of the arrow steals her breath away, and she staggers, dropping to her knees.

Vaguely through the fog of her pain and shaky consciousness, Octavia hears Trikova roar and men scream. Something heavy hits the ground near her.

She falls forward, one hand wrapped around the shaft of the projectile, the other out in front of her to keep her from impaling herself further. She can hear a voice at the back of her head telling her not to pull the arrow out.

More screaming that turns to gurgles, and another heavy thud.

She feels a rough hand on her cheek, and she is being turned and cradled into a warm body. Indra’s face swims into focus, close to her own. She’s never seen the normally stoic woman look this frightened before, even at the very real prospect of her own death.

“ _Oktevia?_ ”

She tries to respond, but can only struggle to draw in breath.

The world tilts and she feels herself lifted from the ground. Indra’s arm is strong – firm and comforting around Octavia’s back – and her sword-arm is cold at the back’s of the girl’s knees. The metal bites at the soft skin at the back of her legs, but it doesn’t matter. She feels secure. She lays her head against her _First’s_ shoulder, strength bleeding out of her in a rush.

“Just breathe, Sky Girl. _Please just breathe_.”

The world goes gray, fading around the edges. Again Octavia tries to speak, manging this time to inhale enough for a pained whimper.

She is too out of it to be ashamed at the show of weakness.

“ _What did I say, stubborn girl?_ Quiet.” Indra sounds scared, and if Octavia had any energy, she might have smiled.

“It’s… okay…” she gasps, and the effort is excruciating.

There is so much she wants to say, to make sure the older woman understands, but it is too much.

Indra growls and they speed up. Octavia thinks that she hears Trikova bounding next to them.

 _‘Not yet – your fight has not ended yet,’_ a voice murmurs in her ears, and it sounds a lot like Lincoln and her mother and Atom and the countless others that have gone before her. It’s comforting and confusing at the same time, and she finds herself relaxing into it.

She fades completely out as Indra reaches the horses. Her last coherent thought is of how angry Raven will be at her, and the anguished look on Clarke’s face when Indra brings her body back.

 

_tbc_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for sticking with this, despite my random and sparse updating schedule. I promise I am working on it - I just tend to write things long hand first then transcribed. I have the next chapter (over 3k before transcription) written out and in the process of being typed.
> 
> Any questions, toss em in the comments.


	5. Part One: Clarke

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Her throat closes up, choking her, making her gasp for air. It hits her all at once, how close she has come to losing the other girl. Not just today, but many times over the past year. Closing her eyes and resting her forehead against Octavia’s temple, she blindly reaches out and takes the injured warrior’s hand. “I won’t lose you - I can’t. So you just keep fighting… Please.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AN 1: See first chapter for disclaimers.
> 
> AN 2: I travel this sea of madness completely beta-less aka I just post without someone to tell me no.
> 
> AN 3: It has been a long time since the last chapter. Real life writing gigs as well as real life in general have a way of cutting into ot4 time. But this is never far from my mind and I continue to peck away at it. Thanks for sticking with it, those that have. <3
> 
> AN 4: This chapter was supposed to be longer, but I decided to get it up asap instead. The other stuff will be redistributed to other chapters in the future.
> 
> AN 5: If ya got questions, toss em in the comments.

PART ONE

 _In the dream I don't tell anyone, you put your head in my lap._  
  
_In the dream I don't tell anyone, I'm afraid to wake you up._  
  
_Oh, the things we invent when we are scared and want to be rescued._  
_  
_ \--I Had A Dream About You, Richard Siken

 

**CLARKE**

It’s remarkable to Clarke how closely they have managed to recreate Medical in Polis. Located in a building across the market square from The Tower, in the reconstructed skeleton of an old world hospital, it’s eight stories loom as the second tallest structure in the city.

She shouldn’t really be that surprised, though. Between Abby’s perfectionism and Raven’s pride and need to please the older Griffin, of course Medical is damn near flawless. Still, every time Clarke sets foot in her mother’s domain, she has to fight back a small tendril of awe.

She finds Abby in her office, smiling and more relaxed than she has seen her in weeks as she chats with Raven and Kane. Catching her eye, Clarke feels warmth spread through her chest at how pleased the older woman looks to see her.

At first, moving to Polis had filled Abby with a bitterness and fear that had soured the doctor on everyone (except Raven, who was a wreck and had the full focus of Abby’s mama bear fire, and Kane, who accepted any ill temper with the calm of a repentant).

 She had isolated herself, throwing herself into her work - tending to the wounded of the battle for the City of Light, moving as much equipment as possible to the city, rehabilitating Raven and Clarke. She avoided contact with anyone that wasn’t sick or injured, went weeks without smiling. She jumped at shadows and raged resentfully against any able bodied Trikru that dared cross her path, as if she blamed them for the loss of everything she had known.

Her eyes lost that spark that had been with her even when her husband had been floated. 

Slowly though, through the urging of Kane, Abby had made the effort to get to know her new home and the people in it.

It was Indra, to everyone’s surprise that was the first Grounder to befriend the doctor. The short haired woman spent many afternoons in Medical, teaching Abby trigedasleng and explaining the unfathomable aspects of Trikru culture. In return, Abby taught the other woman about the stars and how to read the machines in Medical, and even a bit how things were on the Ark.

Now the Griffin matriarch could be found out among the stalls in the market on a slow day, indulging Kane’s perchance to haggle, or chatting with some of the Towerkru (a clever little name Raven came up with for the Grounders who lived in and around the Tower that made Abby chuckle) in the building’s mess hall. On occasion Indra was even successful in getting the doctor to go for a ride. 

Since her father died, Clarke and her mother have fought more than had peace with each other. Friendship - life and something like the possibility of happiness - looked good on Abby Griffin, though, and her daughter couldn’t find it within herself to begrudge the older woman those things.

 

“Clarke,” Abby greets.

Raven and Kane turn, the former smirking, the latter smiling softly. 

“Mom. Chancellor,” Clarke responds, nodding at her elders. There is a pause when her eyes land on Raven, though.

“What am I, chopped liver?” the older girl sasses after a long moment, raising an eyebrow.

If they were alone, or with their friends, Clarke might reply that Raven was her favorite mechanic, hugging her so she could poke her in the ribs until she squirmed, but something about the gaze of the adults makes the blonde feel awkward - like her limbs are too long and her tongue too big for her mouth. 

“Raven, you love chopped liver,” she says instead, crossing her hands over her chest in an unconscious defensive gesture.

To be fair, it is something that Skaikru shares almost universally; a love of fresh food of any kind, meat, fruits, vegetables, it doesn’t matter. Almost all of them will clean a piece of whatever animal down to the marrow. There are no picky eaters among the people that fell from the sky. 

“Of course I do. Like me, it’s amazing,” Raven agrees, shrugging.

Clarke rolls her eyes and turns to her mother. “You sent for me?”

Abby nods, her more pleasant-professional face slipping into place. 

“I’ve had several complaints of fever from the, uh, _your_ scouts,” she stumbles a bit, even after all this time finding it hard to accept her daughter’s role in the way of things. “Nothing life threatening, but I’d like to run some tests on anyone who has had extended contact with them.”

“Annnnnnd that’s my cue to float off,” Raven interrupts, shuddering.

“Charming,” Abby drawls, rolling her eyes in a way that makes it clear she is genetically responsible for Clarke.

“My mouth offend you, Dr. G?” Raven asks, waggling her eyebrows. 

“If you stick around around, we can go get something to eat afterward?” Clarke offers, not ready to see the other girl go.

 Since O’s extended stay in TonDC, Raven has become distant, and Clarke misses her friend. 

“No way. If I stay, _sticking_ is exactly what is gonna happen.” Raven turns to playfully glare at Abby. “You get way too stab happy with those needles.”

“Insert juvenile quip about penetration here,” Abby says dryly, secretly loving the game she and Raven play at annoying her daughter,  who is still a little weirded out that her mother and one of her closest confidants have a friendship outside of her.

Kane shifts the gaze of his remaining eye upward, as if looking to the cosmos for help with these two women, and Raven chuckles, moving towards the door.

She reaches out and softly squeezes Clarke’s arm, using the move as an excuse to brush close and stealthily rub her knuckles along the blonde’s side in a gesture of ‘maybe later’ and ‘sorry’ and ‘I miss you too.’ (They’ve gotten good at communicating without words, of creating a language of looks and touches that speak volumes.) 

Clarke nods minutely, sighing in acceptance and disappointment, fingers brushing against Raven’s right upper thigh out of sight. She can feel the mechanic’s warmth even through the material of her pants, and it helps soothe some of the sudden, odd ache in her chest. 

“Mama Griffin,” Raven calls over her shoulder, grinning. 

“Little Magpie,” Abby responds.

Raven snorts and shakes her head, and then is gone. 

Looking over at Marcus Kane, Clarke feels unsure.

They have come a long way in the last year, have had to rely on each other to survive - a forced alliance between them. He has always seemed to have nothing but the upmost respect for Lexa, which buys him a lot of capital with Clarke, but she has never forgotten his role in the death of her father, nor that he had her mother shock-lashed and almost floated. 

She knows he understands even though they have never discussed it. She can see it in the soft regret in his eye and curve of his mouth. He will never ask for her forgiveness though, and she will never offer. 

“I’ll leave you to it,” Kane says, nodding once at Clarke, but smiling at Abby. 

Neither Griffin protests, though Abby reaches out and gently squeezes the Chancellor’s hand with a look in her eyes Clarke pretends not to understand. 

As he passes her, Kane inclines his head at the blonde in deference. “Wanheda.” 

When he’s gone, Abby sighs. 

“I keep reminding him not to call you that,” she says, motioning for her daughter proceed her to the examination tables. 

Clarke just shrugs, hopping up on the closest one and working her jacket off of her shoulders and arms. Her sleeveless shirt has a low v-neck and Abby raises an eyebrow at the bruise by her collarbone, but says nothing. The younger Griffin fights the urge to touch it,setting her jaw stubbornly and lifting her chin instead. 

Abby wraps a pressure cuff around Clarke’s bicep and pointedly taps a few of the buttons on the machine. 

They get through the vitals - Clarke’s temperature is higher than Abby would like, but not high enough to be of any real concern - and onto drawing blood before the silence finally makes the blonde crack. 

“Just say it,” Clarke says, biting back a sigh.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Abby replies.

It’s unlike her to be coy, and a year ago Clarke might have thought her mother was attempting to manipulate her somehow. Through her recovery, though, the two of them were afforded the opportunity to get to know each other in ways they hadn’t had a chance to even back on the Ark. Clarke had always been Jake’s girl, and Abby busy enough to bury any regret and resentment in her work.

Clarke knows now that her mother is not trying to push - to allow her the privacy she has come to understand Clarke needs (something else not really available on the Ark). The older woman wants her daughter to talk to her, but only when she is ready.

They have come a long way. 

“I know you still don’t approve of Lexa, Mom, even after all she’s done for us. I just… I wish you would just give her a chance. She makes me happy...” 

They have never openly discussed Clarke’s relationship with the Commander before, partially because it is an awkward conversation to have between a parent and child, and partially because Abby still harbors resentment for the young leader for Finn and Raven, and being forced to join the Coalition. Clarke has been dreading the fight she knows is coming, but she is nothing if not Abby’s child, so she squares her shoulders and mentally steels herself.

Abby freezes, frowning.

“Lexa? You and Lexa… are together?” she asks, words slow and precise, eyes narrowing.

Clarke blinks rapidly, surprised.

“I-I thought you knew?”

Abby snaps off her reusable rubber gloves, tossing them into a metal bin to be washed as she moves the sample tray to the table to be dealt with later 

“I knew there was something between you, from _before_ , but… since the accident-” which is what the doctor called what happened to her in the final battle with A.L.I.E., because calling it anything else would mean blaming Raven, and neither of them could do that, “you’ve been so. I don’t know, _distant_ in public. I knew you were fond of her, but…”

Abby sighs here, turns to lean her hip against the table opposite her daughter and crosses her arms over her chest. She’s not quite able to look Clarke in the eye, watching the way the girl fiddles with her hands instead.

“But?” Clarke prompts, not sure if she should be pleased or on guard at the complete lack of hostility in her mother’s voice. She settles for cautiously optimistic, because they really have come a long way in the last year, and she wants so desperately for her mother to _see her._  

“You’ve become so _close_ to Raven, I just thought…” Another sigh, this one more self deprecating than anything else. “She’d never be able to keep that secret from me, though, I suppose.”

 “... You thought I was with Raven? _Reyes_?” Clarke is too surprised to be anything but deadpan.

 “I’ve never seen you so open with someone, not since Wells. You’re thick as thieves, always practically in each other’s laps. The looks you give each other… And you seem, I don’t know, _happier_.”

 Clarke frowns, her stomach dropping oddly, and she feels herself becoming unreasonably defensive.

 “I’m as close to Octavia as I am to Raven,” she replies, crossing her own arms over her chest. 

Abby holds her hands up in front of her body, shrugging. “I assumed she wasn’t emotionally able, because of Lincoln.” 

The defensiveness grows, rearing up lion-like at the mention of Octavia’s pain.

“O is strong. It’s been hard, but she’s come so far. She’s stronger than anyone else I know.”

Abby nods, eyes soft with understanding and sympathy. 

“I would never suggest otherwise. She is a remarkable young woman - one of the best of us. But the loss of a partner, it’s not something one gets over easily. No matter how strong you are.”

 Clarke wants to make a cutting remark, Finn’s eyes flashing through her mind (except that he wasn’t hers, not really, not like that, and she has no place lashing out at her mother on Raven’s behalf), but there is suddenly so much pain in her mother’s eyes that she is left feeling weak at the sight of it.

Abby sees Clarke deflate and tries to smile reassuringly. 

“It’s okay,” the woman murmurs, reaching out and squeezing her daughter’s arm where is is tucked against her body. “I’m… I’m okay.” She takes a deep breath, letting it out slowly. “I’m sorry I assumed. So… Lexa, huh?” 

Clarke lets out a shaky breath.

“Yeah, Lexa.”

Abby chuckles dryly, shrugging. 

“While I clearly can’t say I’m not surprised, I do understand. I want you to be happy - you deserve it, after all you’ve been through.” 

Clarke can’t help herself; she has to poke at the soreness between them, not quite able to believe yet that she and her mother can find peace. 

“Nothing to say about fraternizing with the enemy?” 

She sees her mother’s eyebrows draw together in what seems like mild confusion.

“Clarke, if not for Lexa you’d be dead. I’d be crazy to hate the woman who not only saved my daughter’s life, but apparently has helped bring that… spark back into her eyes.” A tight, pained smile. “It’s been gone for so long.”

The guilt is palpable now, and Clarke is truly aware of just how much her mother has lost - of what the woman has been through, first with the death of her husband, and then losing her only child not once, but three times over. She’s always known on a cerebral level, but her own pain has made empathizing with her mother difficult at best. Now, though, she feels an invisible hand squeezing her heart at the expression of naked remorse mixed with the relief on Abby’s face.

Clarke reaches out slowly, unable to find the right words, and Abby takes her hand, clutching desperately for a moment. The younger Griffin allows her mother the time to pull herself together. To feel her here, alive and strong and on her way to something resembling well.

After a few deep, controlled breaths, Abby pulls back. Her smile trembles around the edges, but otherwise she has managed to lock away her emotions again - the pleasant mask of the doctor sliding over her features.

“Thank you for stopping by,” she says, clearing her throat. “I have all I need. Try and stay hydrated and have minimal contact with the scouts until I isolate the type of infection we’re dealing with.” 

Again Clarke can see what she is doing, trying to give her space, trying not to crowd her in the hopes of avoiding being punished for daring to be vulnerable. She knows that they are alike, and that for all the infinite patience and care they show others, they have always been rough and unforgiving with themselves and each other. 

Abby is clearly trying, though. Trying to change the unhealthy pattern. Clarke can try too. 

With a tentative smile, Clarke slides from the table and motions to the Medbay at large. 

“Is there anything I can do to help?”

Abby lets out a puff of air and shakes her head.

“As much as I would love your company, I know how busy you are. Relax while you can.” 

“Mom…” 

“No use denying. Marcus told me the Commander has suspended preparations for the summit until this afternoon. It’s okay to have a morning off to yourself, honey.”

 Clarke opens her mouth to argue, because yes she is tired, but she misses her mother (or at least the still tender beginnings of their new relationship) and it’s been weeks since she has had a chance to do a shift in Medical, but panicked shouts from outside the door grab both their attention. 

Before they can move towards the commotion, the door to Medical opens and Indra strides in, Octavia cradled in her arm and deadly prosthetic. Trikova prowls at her feet, hissing angrily.

“Help her,” is all the Trikru woman says, eyes wild and more than a little desperate. 

Immediately, Abby springs into action, helping Indra lay the unconscious girl on the closest bed.

“Get me gauze and clean water,” the doctor says to her daughter, already assessing the situation. 

Clarke freezes, unable to breathe. 

Octavia is pale - _like death, like the grave_ \- blood slowly oozing from a wound on her chest. She is barely breathing, making wheezing sounds on the inhale (whenever she finds the strength to pull air into her lungs) and soft gurgling noises on the exhale. 

There is an arrow sticking out of her. The sight of it makes Clarke sick to her stomach, and for a moment she’s afraid she will lose her breakfast. 

Octavia is bleeding out. Octavia who used to play with butterflies, and still sometimes weaves flowers into Clarke’s hair when the older girl was having a bad day. Octavia who sometimes slept in Lexa and Clarke’s outer room, when Raven was working late and the nightmares were too much. Octavia who wanted nothing more than to have a family, to _belong_ and contribute and be loved. 

“O…” 

Trikova jumps onto the table, crouching over his mistress’ legs and growling at the two women bent near her. 

“ _Useless fucking beast!_ ” Indra spits in trigedasleng, raising her bladed arm to strike the leopard down. 

“No!” Clarke shouts, snapping back to reality. “ _Shadow, down._ ” 

With a reluctant hiss, the large cat slinks off the table and to Clarke, rubbing up against her legs with loud, distressed purrs. 

“ _C_ _ommander of Death and Devils,_ ” Indra growls to herself. 

“ _Shadow, hide,_ ” Clarke commands, scratching the leopard roughly between the ears. Trikova mews, tail whipping back and forth in distress. “ _Now._ ” 

The young beast stalks across the room, low to the floor, crawling under a table on the far side and watching the people with large, slitted eyes. 

“Clarke, I need gauze and antiseptic now,” Abby says again, tone even and patient. “Indra, I need you to go get Jackson. He should be on the 4th floor doing rounds.”

Without hesitation Clarke jumps to follow the instructions, pulling the requested items from their cabinets and drawers quickly. 

When she returns, Indra is glaring down at Octavia, remaining hand gripping the girl’s armor. They are both covered in blood. 

“Send your girl,” the warrior mutters gruffly, sounding angry, but Clarke sees her chin tremble (twice, like a twitch but softer) and she knows she is afraid. 

“Indra,” Abby murmurs in that soft way she reserves for terrified children and shell shocked adults. 

She takes Indra’s face between her strong, steady hands and makes sure the other woman is looking at her before speaking again. Clarke knows this move - has been on the receiving end more than a few times - it never failed to center her, bring her back to the now. 

“Indra, I need Clarke to help me stabilize Octavia.” Abby’s voice is oh-so-gentle and reassuring, her thumbs brushing across the scars on Indra’s cheeks soothingly. 

Clarke makes note of the intimacy of the moment and files it away. 

“I will not abandon my _Second_ when she needs me, _Abi_ ,” the Trikru woman states, unwavering. 

Abby continues, undeterred, drawing closer so her voice can go quieter, less challenging. “What Octavia needs right now is for you to go get my surgical assistant. Please. She’s lost a lot of blood - she doesn’t have time for us to argue.”

Indra takes two deep, shuddering breaths, closing her eyes briefly before nodding and stepping back.

“You will save her,” Indra insists, words firm but eyes pleading.

Abby smiles, hands returning to her own sides. “I will do everything in my power.”

They share a look, and then Indra is gone, and Clarke is stepping up with the supplies.

Mother and daughter work side by side, efficient as machines. Clarke’s hands hardly shake as she helps clean the area around the arrow so they can assess the damage.

“Her lung collapsed. We have to take the arrow out, now.” Abby’s voice is without inflection, matter of fact.

Clarke nods, mind going to that special, empty and detached place that will allow her to do what needs to be done.

Jackson arrives as the doctor is pulling out the arrow, taking in the situation quickly before washing his hands and replacing the younger Griffin.

Clarke moves to do secondary things -  hooking O up to monitors, prepping bags of blood and other fluids, taking away dirty gauze and other detritus.

All too soon, though, she has run out of things to keep her busy, and the waves of panic the frantic activity was keeping at bay come rolling back in.

Her hands are covered in blood - Octavia’s blood.

She moves mechanically to the sink and turns it on as hot as it will go, scrubbing harshly at the stains. Even when the water runs clear, she continues to scrub herself red and raw, not stopping until a voice breaks through her frenzy.

“Enough, Wanheda. _We may yet need your hands."_

Clarke looks up, dazed and sluggish. Indra stands as far away from the happenings on the operating table as possible. The blade attachment is gone from her arm, her remaining hand unconsciously coming up to massage the nub. She lists ever so slightly to the left, and Clarke is reminded of what Octavia  told her happened at _Tondisi._  Of the attacks the injuries sustained.

“You’re hurt,” the girl says, moving to the warrior. “Let me help you.”

Indra tenses, straightening abruptly as if she suddenly realized her posture was anything but ramrod, and glares at the blonde. Dark eyes regard Clarke with anger and exasperation when she doesn’t take the hint, but continues coming forward.

“I do not need your help,” Indra growls, and the sound is answered by Trikova, whose tail swishes aggressively. “Insolent beast,” she mutters, but even Clarke can tell she is a little fond of the cat.

" _We may need your sword yet_ ,” Clarke says, indicating Indra show her her ribs.

For a moment it looks as if Indra will fight her, but then her shoulders slump minutely and she nods.

“Tell me what happened,” Clarke commands as she examines the General.

Hesitating for a moment, expression indignant - no doubt at being ordered to do anything by anyone other than Heda - the warrior catches herself, seeming to remember who exactly is doing the ordering. She lets out an annoyed snort.

They move over to a table and Clarke motions for the warrior to sit down, confident and all business. Indra complies, unbuckling her chest plate.

There is a wound along her left side, older - from the attacks on TonDC. It has not healed properly - whomever had cauterized it (keeping to the old ways despite Abby proving over and over that cleaning and stitching the area was infinitely better) had been inconsistent in pressure and placement, and the blade had clearly been the wrong temperature. Clarke can do nothing about that now except raise an eyebrow, at which Indra rolls her eyes.

The area is still inflamed, discolored and tender, indicating infection. The blonde sighs and gets a scalpel and other equipment, setting about lancing the mess and cleaning up the blood and pus that seeps out. She doesn’t bother with anesthetic because she knows it will be refused.

“They were Yujleda, by their markings,” the General starts, letting out a grunt, eye twitching but otherwise giving away nothing. “Four of them, in the forests North-East of here about 5 miles. I did not recognize them - they were not amongst those that attacked _Tondisi."_

“Where did they come from.”

“I… did not see. But if I had to guess, I would guess these men came from the North.”

"Yujleda lands are not North of here.”

“No,” Indra agrees, barely flinching as the girl goes about her work. “No they are not.”

Clarke nods and spreads a poultice on the incisions she's made, quickly covering them with a bandage.

“When I finish, you should report to Heda.”

“I will not leave my _Second_ again.”

“Lexa would want to know right away.”

" _Even Death cannot move me from my place here,_  Wanheda." Indra's tone is quiet, with the seriousness of the grave.

Clarke wants to argue, but she can’t. There are precious few people that Indra cares about, and Octavia is one of them. Maybe the most important. The warrior pretends to be impartial, but Clarke remembers how she lost her arm. She remembers that Indra was willing to lose her _life_ for the girl.

Clarke knows Indra lost her own daughter (to the Azgeda - to Nia), but she can imagine that the look in the woman’s eyes when she looked at her own flesh and blood was no different than when she looks at the younger Blake.

“When she is stable,” Wanheda compromises, moving on in her work.

Indra doesn’t reply but her body relaxes minutely.

There is a fresh gash on Indra’s shoulder, still bleeding sluggishly. Clarke wipes the area clean and begins sewing it shut.

“Tell me what happened, in TonDC.”

“I made a full report to the Commander.” Indra isn’t belligerent exactly, but certainly sharp.

Clarke pauses and looks at her, face impassive, and waits. After a few moments, Indra sighs and rolls her eyes.

“Very well.”

 

First the sickness had come. The water had turned sour, _rotten,_  and the children and elders had fallen ill.

The camp had just settled into the village again, after so much time rebuilding, and the new irrigation and aqueduct system designed by Wick had made daily life so much easier.

(Clarke nods as she listens, going back into the zone. She pulls needle and thread through Indra’s skin efficiently, stitches small and tight and precise.)

The Trikru warriors had blamed the sickness on the engineer, taking it as proof that the tek used to create the system was abomination and refusing to use it, but after guards began falling ill - guard who used water from outside the system itself - they had to reassess.

It had been Octavia, out scouting with Trikova, who had discovered the rancid body of the large buck upriver, at the natural feed for their drinking water. He had apparently gotten caught in the long reaching roots of a water tree and drowned, though Indra suspected that this seemingly simple explanation was a bit too neat.

(Clarke ties off the last of the stitches and spreads poultice on the area, securing a bandage. Indra snorts at her but nods once in thanks. Clarke moves to lean against the same table, and they look on as Abby and Jackson work on Octavia.)

The refugees had come next - scores of them, all Yujleda and Trishina, followed almost immediately by the attacks.

At first it was the outposts and the hunters, and they lost 9 good warriors before they realized what was happening and gathered their forces.

Then the barely rebuilt walls were under siege, an army of 500 trying to tear TonDC apart.

The village, already weak from sickness and resources thin from the refugees, could not stay closed off for long. After only three days, Indra was forced to rally the troops to meet the enemy on the battlefield.

The night before the battle, Octavia took a small group of four of _Tondisi’s_ stealthiest warriors, thinning the ranks as much as possible. They managed to take out a third of the attack forces before the first day of battle. There was no doubt in Indra’s mind that that her _Second’s_ actions led to eventual victory.

The battle had been brutal, waging for almost a full day and night. In the end only 13 of the defending 46 warriors survived, but the Trikru managed to kill many of the invaders, and drive off the rest.

Indra had taken a spiked cudgel to the side, and Octavia had barely dodged a well swung sword.

After only a few days rest, Indra and Octavia had journeyed to Polis, leaving Nyko and Wick behind to lead the reconstruction of the walls and finish the power system. Lexa had dispatched a battalion of warriors upon hearing the report, with plans to go herself when the Summit was done.

 

Clarke and Indra stand side by side watching Abby and Jackson bustle around Octavia in silence. Indra because she has spent her words, and Clarke because she is thinking.

Between the reports of her scouts about the defections and migrations towards the West, and Indra’s tale about TonDC, she is beginning to form a picture of what is happening. Though the ground has never been stable, for Skaikru, there are rules and patterns that the harsh place and its peoples follow, like wheels in a rut. But now, things are… fluid. There is still structure, but it is artificial - foreign.

“Clarke,” Abby calls softly, snapping the blonde from her thoughts.

Her mother and her surgical assistant have finished, Octavia bandaged and breathing on her own. Clarke shakes her head and blinks hard, wondering how long she has been out of it. She hurries over to the operating table, followed by an anxious Indra. 

“She has some lacerations on the backs of her thighs that will need stitching,” the doctor explains, smiling gently. She looks tired but glows with the sort of peace that comes from a job done to the best of her ability.

“They are from my blade,” Indra admits, clearly shamed. “There was no time to remove it. 

Abby smiles at the other woman reassuringly, the expression soft at the eyes, like she would when Clarke was young and needed comforting as much as understanding.

“They’re clean, very straight with no tearing. They’ll heal just fine, we just need to get them closed so she can rest properly,” Abby says, speaking low and steady and like she needs Indra’s permission to proceed. “I want to monitor her vitals when we turn her, though, while Jackson and Clarke seal them up.”

“As you see fit, _Abi Griffin_ ,” the Trikru General responds, voice void of emotion. 

They roll Octavia onto her side and her breathing becomes slightly labored, but otherwise she remains stable. Indra sits by the girl’s head as the three others work quickly, her hand resting on the table near Octavia’s shoulder, not quite touching her. 

“ _Enough, Sky Girl_ ,” she murmurs. “ _You_ **_will_ ** _wake up and you_ **_will_ ** _recover quickly. There is much to do._ ”

 

An hour after Octavia is resting peacefully, wrapped in blankets and hooked up to fluids, Indra stands, body moving in jerky fits, as if it is fighting her. She makes her way towards the exit to medical, jaw clenched tight and hand gripping her belt to keep it from shaking.

“I will make my report to Heda now,” she states, not quite looking at Clarke. 

“I’ll keep watch,” the girl assures. 

“Yes. I expect you will.” 

Near the door, before she can leave, Abby stops Indra with a hand on the bend of her arm. They are too far away for Clarke to hear what they are saying, but she sees her mother uncover the warrior’s shoulder wound and inspect the stitches (the doctor nods, pleased and relieved). 

Abby motions to Indra’s older wound, but the General waves her hand dismissively. Instead of arguing with Indra like Clarke expects, Abby sighs and cups Indra’s cheek. She says something softly, smiling ruefully and shaking her head as she pulls away. 

Looking down, so as not to get caught staring, Clarke swallows hard. She refuses to think about the closeness - intimacy - that she has witnessed, instead focusing on Octavia, who lies resting before her. 

Octavia is pale, almost like paper and looking as fragile, except for the dark smudges under her eyes. Her breathing is still labored, ragged, the sound tearing through Clarke’s own chest and squeezing her heart. 

She leans close, so that she can whisper to the sleeping girl. 

“Your fight is _not_ over, do you hear me? You’re not allowed to do this - not allowed to leave. I’ve lost too much...”

 Her throat closes up, choking her, making her gasp for air. It hits her all at once, how close she has come to losing the other girl. Not just today, but many times over the past year. Closing her eyes and resting her forehead against Octavia’s temple, she blindly reaches out and takes the injured warrior’s hand. “I won’t lose you - I can’t. So you just keep fighting… _Please_.”

  
Octavia’s breathing hitches for a moment, and Clarke’s stomach drops, before settling into a stronger, steady though still raspy rhythm.

 

_tbc_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next up is Lexa. 
> 
> Lexa visits Octavia in Medical. Feat. Totally-terrified-but-trying-to-hide-it Lexa, more Protective Mama Indra, Worried Abby, and Barely-holding-it-together Raven. Lexa is pulled away to speak with Titus and some scouts, who bring her bad news from the West. Aden asks her about the Conclave. Raven has a small breakdown and Lexa comforts her.

**Author's Note:**

> This is gonna be slow burn. 
> 
> I have skipped forward a year partially to give myself the space to be able to play with stories that aren't about Skaikru getting their shit together in terms of the Coalition, and partially to not have to be responsible with establishing that the the ladies are all at least friends. I am more interested in taking them from B to C than from A to B.
> 
> As I go along I will be touching back on what went on during the missing year, but if anyone has burning questions that can't wait, feel free to ask and I will answer.


End file.
